The Dream Allowed
by isaytoodlepip
Summary: A series of connected drabbles on HouseWilson and the progression of their relationship.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This story is a collection of drabbles based on some beautiful poems that are, sadly, not mine. Also, this will be House/Wilson by the end, so there's your warning.

**I. The Coastguard Station – Henri Cole **

_At dawn, a few recruits have a smoke_

_on the patio above the breakers;_

_across the sand path, I sit with my books,_

_hearing their animal coughs._

_Strangely, watching them tranquillizes me._

_Their big clapboard house_

_is illuminated all night,_

_like the unconscious, though no one enters._

_Even in hallucinatory fog,_

_their pier is flash-bulb bright_

_and staunch as Abraham._

_Overhead, a gull scavenges like a bare hand._

_An officer, in orange overalls,_

_stares like a python_

_up into the window where I am._

_What does it mean to be chosen?_

_To have your body grow into a hero's_

_and have done nothing to achieve it?_

_To seize a birthright, unobstructed?_

_To dominate with confident bearing? _

_That is their covenant,_

_even cold-stupefied and lethargic:_

_hearing the blessing of Isaac to Jacob._

_Naked and a little drunk,_

_I sit chafing at it,_

_the nerves in my teeth aching,_

_lording it over the rest of me._

_Why do I appear to be what I am not?_

_To the world, arrogantly self-sufficient._

_To myself, womanish, conflicted, subservient,_

_like Esau pleading, "Bless me also, Father!"_

_I hate what I am and I hate what I am not_

--

Greg wipes ineffectually at his eyes, knowing that the sweat on his face and arms will only make them sting, but he's soaking wet and hot and uncomfortable, despite all of the measures he's taken to feel nothing at all. Giving up on feeling human, he presses himself against the window, hoping the cool glass will temper him. Instead, he just slides and sticks, slides and sticks, leaving trails of himself all over. He mumbles and laughs to himself and concentrates on breathing through his nose, the beer and bumps on his breath enough to make him dizzy all over again. He sees some of the Coastguard boys smoking in front of the bunk across the dirt road from his. He sees them in their stupid pretend uniforms and he's never been so glad to be naked in all his life. He knows that'll change, but at this moment, he's drunk and young and unafraid. Let them look up. Let them see. Assholes.

Greg is sixteen years old and once again his father has sent him to this hellhole for the summer. It's not bootcamp, but it's not far off. A hundred military brats, wannabe officers, divided by loyalty but united in a common goal to be sheep. Coastguard. Navy. Army. Air Force. Marines. They all found their brothers in arms the first day of camp. Greg drifted over to the few guys he knew, the sons of his father's friends. The carbon copies of their own fathers. He runs with them, makes fun of the others with them. Sometimes, like tonight, he gets drunk with them. But he'd rather kill himself than be one of them. Like he ever could be.

"Jesus, House. Put some fucking pants on." Everyone comes back in a wave, and normally Greg would jump to cover himself, but the glass of the window feels too good on his skin, and he's pretty sure he puked on his fatigues sometime on the walk back to camp from the local slut's house party.

"Kiss my ass," he answers, and for a moment he wonders if that is enough to get him out of this. Sixteen, and he still hasn't told his dad that he's not going to be the next junior officer.

"That's insubordination, son. Drop and give me twenty." Greg turns and looks at Allen. He's not joking. He never jokes about orders. His father is a colonel and he thinks he'll inherit the man's bravery. He thinks that he's entitled to it. Greg thinks he's a cowardly piece of shit, too ignorant to understand his own actions. The other guys are looking at them now, too. Some are embarrassed, whether by Allen's pompousness or Greg's nudity, he can't tell, but most of them are eager to witness some humiliation. Greg resents the expectations. But he's always one to oblige. At least in this game.

"Why, Mattie, if you wanted me on my knees, all you had to do was ask," he lisps, hating himself for the affectation but lapping up the laughs of the others as Allen blanches and backs away.

"Fag," he mutters, and then everyone leaves Greg alone. He turns and stares out the window again. He studies the muscles in the young men's forearms as they take turn taking drags on their last cigarette. He studies their fingers, their throats, the way the smoke hugs their lips when they exhale. Suddenly too tense, he turns away, grabs his towel, and heads to the showers. Predictably, Allen comes to him there, and even though he's found himself staring at the young man more than once, Greg is glad that he's not there to suck him off but to beat the shit out of him. He knows he needs to have a discussion with his father before doing anything like that. His dad once tried to explain to him the meaning of honor. "It's doing your duty, being a man," he'd said. But that hadn't meant anything to Greg, so he'd looked it up. Honor was about integrity. Dignity. Pride. Greg might not want to be a soldier, but that doesn't mean he has no honor


	2. Chapter 2

**II. In Despair – Constantine Cavafy **

_He lost him completely. And he now tries to find_

_his lips in the lips of each new lover,_

_he tries in the union with each new lover_

_to convince himself that it's the same young man,_

_that it's to him he gives himself._

_He lost him completely, as though he never existed._

_He wanted, his lover said, to save himself_

_from the tainted, unhealthy form of sexual pleasure,_

_the tainted, shameful form of sexual pleasure._

_There was still time, he said, to save himself._

_He lost him completely, as though he never existed._

_Through fantasy, through hallucination,_

_he tries to find his lips in the lips of other young men,_

_he longs to feel his kind of love once more._

--

"I can't get involved with a closet case," Wilson told him. "Not again."

"That's rich. I didn't even know _you_ were gay until five seconds ago."

"Well, now you know."

"And?"

"What?"

"God. Never mind. Get me a beer."

James Wilson knew that House was lying. About not knowing. He didn't care about his reasons, if he had any, and he didn't care about shoving the truth, whatever that was, in House's face. All he wanted to do was watch TV and drink beer and eat poorly. Basically, he wanted their normal Friday night, but House had latched on to this "symptom" and he'd have to wait for a diagnosis before either of them could get any rest.

"And did I _say_ I was interested? You haven't even asked about my dreams, hopes, and aspirations yet."

"I think your dreams would give me nightmares, but I see hookers and Vicodin and Cuddy's head on a stake. And you said 'suck my dick,' which gives some clues as to your hopes and aspirations."

"Normally you have a healthy sense for the metaphorical."

"As do you."

"There was a _tone_."

"Well, I've always been tone deaf."

"Explains the affinity for musicals."

"Ha," Wilson deadpanned, handing House his beer.

"You _are_ gay, aren't you?" House asked. But he wasn't really asking.

"No."

"Just an equal-opportunity slut?"

"Did you Tivo _The L-Word_?"

"Stop trying to distract me with breasts and bad acting. I deal with that enough at work."

"Cameron has breasts?"

"Nice."

They watched the TV and each other for a while, Wilson remembering the first time he interpreted "suck my dick" as an invitation, House probably plotting a very embarrassing and very public outing.

"Maybe we should switch to _Queer as Folk_," House mused, tapping his empty beer bottle on Wilson's thigh, demanding a refill.

"Brian Kinney _is_ dreamy," Wilson sighed, as much from the effort of dealing with House as from the effort of sitting up.

"So Arrogant Sexy Bastard _is_ your type?" House grinned.

"Isn't that obvious?"


	3. Chapter 3

**III. Symmetrical Companion – May Swenson **

_It must be_

_there walks somewhere in the world_

_another_

_another namely like me_

_Not twin_

_but opposite _

_as my two hands are opposite_

_Where are you_

_my symmetrical companion?_

_Do you inhabit_

_the featureless fog_

_of the future?_

_Are you sprinting_

_from the shadows of the past_

_to overtake me?_

_Or are you camouflaged_

_in the colored present?_

_Do I graze you every day_

_as yet immune to your touch_

_unaware of your scent_

_inert under your glance?_

_Come to me_

_Whisper your name_

_I will know you instantly_

_by a passport_

_decipherable to ourselves alone_

_We shall walk uniformed_

_in our secret_

_We shall be a single reversible cloak_

_lined with light within_

_furred with dark without_

_Nothing shall be forbidden us_

_All bars shall fall before us_

_Even the past shall be lit behind us_

_and seen to have led_

_like two predestined corridors_

_to the vestibule of our meeting_

_We shall be two daring acrobats_

_above the staring faces_

_framed in wheels of light_

_visible to millions_

_yet revealed only to each other_

_in the tiny circular mirrors_

_of our pupils_

_We shall climb together_

_up the frail ladders_

_balancing on slender_

_but steel-strong thongs of faith_

_When you leap_

_my hands will be surely there_

_at the arc's limit_

_We shall synchronize_

_each step of the dance upon the wire_

_We shall not fall_

_as long as our gaze is not severed_

_Where are you_

_my symmetrical companion?_

_Until I find you_

_my mouth is locked_

_my heart is numb_

_my mind unlit_

_my limbs unjointed_

_I am a marionette_

_doubled up in a dark trunk_

_a dancer frozen_

_in a catatonic sleep_

_a statue locked_

_in the stone_

_a Lazarus wrapped_

_in the swaddling strips_

_not of death_

_but of unborn life_

_a melody bound_

_in the strings of the viol_

_a torrent imprisoned_

_in ice_

_a flame buried_

_in the coal_

_a jewel hidden_

_in a block of lava_

_Come release me_

_Without you I do not yet exist_

--

"As long as you're trying to be good, you can do whatever you want."

"And as long as you're not trying, you can say whatever you want."

"So between us, we can do anything. We can rule the world!"

House can't pinpoint the moment he became interested in Wilson, and God knows he's tried to figure it out. He wants to stop it. It's dangerous, for both of them. For Wilson because, no matter what he might say, he doesn't _really_ want people at the hospital to know that he occasionally sleeps with men or shaves his legs or wears chiffon or whatever it else House lets him hide from him. And it's dangerous for House because he knows it's bound to change things, and no matter how unhappy he may be, he can't be bothered to learn a new way of being and he can't afford to push Wilson away. Logically, he knows it wouldn't matter if he could convince himself that everything stemmed from that day long ago when Wilson wore the green tie and French shoes for some random nurse or from stolen sandwiches and juvenile pranks. How would that help? But he still wants to know. Maybe then, he could control it.

"Lunch?" Wilson asks when he pops his head into House's office.

"Mexican."

"Italian?"

"Greek."

"Pita Palace?"

"Fine."

House doesn't have to stare at Wilson's face as he tries to figure out what's so special about him, but he does any way, knowing that it bugs Wilson. He counts the number of times his friend wipes imaginary smudges from his face (6) and the number of times he runs his tongue over his teeth to check for food (4).

"What's up?" Wilson finally asks, frowning as he reaches for his wallet, as House makes a show of ignoring the check.

House won't say anything. It's Wilson's job to tell House how he's feeling, especially if he's feeling like shit. But it's been a quiet day and Wilson doesn't have anything to go on, so instead House talks about work. Like it's not obvious.

Just before leaving him at the door to his office, Wilson tells him that he signed the papers.

"Now you can finally make an honest man of me," House answers, making a swift exit from the conversation before Wilson can joke about it.

By the end of the day, his leg is killing him and he's gone through too much Vicodin to be asking for more, but that doesn't stop him. And it never stops Wilson from writing for him. Only at his most self-destructive does House bring that up. And it's been a quiet day.

"Ah, assisted suicide. I'm so glad I picked an oncologist," he says as he shakes his new bottle of pills, wanting to shove his Pavlovian response in Wilson's face. He knows he's being particularly cruel. Knows that Wilson lost a long-time patient yesterday, one that had been in too much pain for far too long. Knows that Wilson still feels guilty for his part in the detox bet. But he can't help himself.

"I'm still the beneficiary of your will, right?" Wilson asks, but House knows that it stung. And he wonders why he doesn't just come out and tell Wilson that he wants him, if he's so hell bent on pushing him away anyway.


	4. Chapter 4

**IV. The Hug – Thom Gunn **

_It was your birthday, we had drunk and dined_

_Half of the night with our old friend_

_Who'd showed us in the end_

_To a bed I reached in one drunk stride._

_Already I lay snug,_

_And drowsy with the wine dozed on one side._

_I dozed, I slept. My sleep broke on a hug,_

_Suddenly, from behind,_

_In which the full lengths of our bodies pressed:_

_Your instep to my heel,_

_My shoulder-blades against your chest._

_It was not sex, but I could feel_

_The whole strength of your body set,_

_ Or braced, to mine,_

_And locking me to you_

_As if we were still twenty-two_

_When our grand passion had not yet_

_Become familial._

_My quick sleep had deleted all_

_Of intervening time and place._

_I only knew_

_The stay of your secure firm dry embrace._

The year House turned 47, Cuddy invited us to her house for a home-cooked meal. Normally, House likes to pretend that he had no birthday. He just popped out of Zeus's head, teeth and all. Saved him from the mess of afterbirth and lines at Macy's on Mother's Day, he said. But really, he just doesn't like being celebrated for something so arbitrary and without merit. Beating another level of FFX, though, _that_ was cause for joy and merry-making. So I was surprised that Cuddy even knew it was House's birthday, let alone cared enough to invite us over to her home. But I wasn't surprised when House accepted for both of us. After all, he'd stolen her garbage the last time she'd taken one of us to dinner, and he still talked about the contents of her underwear drawer whenever she managed to rope him into attending a staff meeting. Now she was practically inviting him to invade her privacy. How could he resist?

It was actually a pleasant evening. Something has changed between House and Cuddy since her cancer scare and the only time he was deliberately an ass was when she wished him a happy birthday and gave him his clinic schedule for the next week. She grilled us steaks, giving us time to snoop around in her living room and laugh at the quantity of Disney DVDs in her collection. We watched _Animal House_ as we ate, and though I know House and I have a history with this movie (we watched it the first night I crashed at his place, when my first wife kicked me out, and then took a road trip, looking for Otis Day but finding Tom Waits instead), I was surprisingly jealous as he and Cuddy traded in-jokes. It's easy to forget that they have known each other for so long. It's easy to forget that I'm not _really_ his only friend.

After the movie, we drank dirty Martinis and played poker. We needed more people for a real game, but it didn't matter to any of us. It was just enough to be drinking and laughing and not worrying that House would open his mouth and ruin it all. Eventually, the long day caught up with Cuddy, as did the inner-administrator. I hadn't had a lot to drink, but it was enough that I shouldn't have driven. House and I could have easily called a cab, but there was something so…close about the evening, so warm and intimate, that I felt it would have been ruined by some stranger carting us to our separate homes. Cuddy pointed to the spare bedroom and the shower. House was nowhere near ready to go to sleep, so I left him in the living room watching _Biker Build-off_ and went to bed, glad that he seemed to be happy but wishing I wasn't alone.

I woke up to something warm and moist against the back of my neck. House's breath. And it was House's body that was curled around mine, his arms around my waist, his chin against my shoulder, his legs against my legs. I knew he was awake. I knew from the tension in his skin. I knew from the pattern of his breath. And God, did I want to turn around, but I knew that this wasn't about sex. To make it about that would cheapen it. He was safe (was he?). He was happy (with me?). He was full of food and booze and life, and he was telling me he was still mine. I could have turned around, but I figured that he knew I was awake anyway, and this was the safest way to return the sentiment. Or maybe I was too terrified to disturb his thieving embrace.


	5. Chapter 5

**V. We Two Boys Together Clinging – Walt Whitman **

_We two boys together clinging,_

_One the other never leaving,_

_Up and down the roads going, North and South_

_excursions making,_

_Power enjoying, elbows stretching, fingers clutching,_

_Arm'd and fearless, eating, drinking, sleeping, loving,_

_No law less than ourselves owning, sailing, soldiering,_

_thieving, threatening,_

_Misers, menials, priests alarming, air breathing, water_

_drinking, on the turf or the sea-beach dancing, _

_Cities wrenching, ease scorning, statues mocking,_

_feebleness chasing,_

_Fulfilling our foray._

The days of recovery following the shooting and ketamine coma weren't all hell. House played the good boy long enough to suck out all the sympathy of the nurses and his staff, amassing an obscene amount of candy and cards before he grew bored of the novelty and broke out of the hospital with a sardonic, "Kiss my crippled ass."

That night, Cuddy came by with a jump rope and "Rocky" on dvd. She gave him two months to get himself in shape and get back to work. When she left, she kissed him on the cheek and murmured, "You scared us, you asshole."

A week later, his mom came for a visit, and in between driving him to a from PT sessions at a private practice far from the inquisitive stares of his PPTH colleagues she saw to it that he gained at least ten pounds, stuffing his fridge and freezer with enough home-made meals to last him a month.

His father sent him a piece of shrapnel they'd dug out of his uncle's leg.

But it was Wilson who came with the best gift.

"I figured you were missing the high," he shrugged, eyebrows dancing as he rolled House a joint. "But don't get used to this."

"Buzz kill," House smiled.

They ended up in New York that night, making asses of themselves at a Mets game and drinking so much beer that they had to stay the night in some hotel in Queens that had just enough class to have a mini-fridge stocked with vodka and macadamia nuts. House, jumping up and down on the bed and moaning like a whore in heat, made Wilson laugh so hard he nearly pissed himself. Wilson tried to stand up to join him but they soon fell down in a tangle of limbs, all giggles and premonitions of regret for having drunk so much.

And then House kissed him.

And Wilson said, "It's all going to change now, isn't it?" and smiled.

And then it all changed.

And then House went back to work, and it all changed again.

The day after Cuddy discharged his vegetable, House cajoled Wilson into catching an afternoon ballgame. He'd filled his forged scrip at the local druggist the night before, and after a very brief debate with himself, he slipped two crushed Vicodin pills into his pocket flask before topping it off and heading out the door to pick Wilson up.

"This part of the 'new man' routine, too?" Wilson asked him as House paid for their tickets, their food, and their beer.

"Just an Irish wake, Jimmy," House answered, taking a swig of his laced Scotch.


	6. Chapter 6

**VI. No Kingdom – Carl Phillips **

_So little wakes you – why_

_should a little rain,_

_or my leaving_

_to stand under it_

_and naked_

_because I can,_

_all neighbors down,_

_at last down,_

_for the dreaming, and_

_every wasp – daily, the yard's_

_plague – gone, _

_returned to_

_whatever shingle or board_

_roofs their now_

_thrumless heliport._

_Tremblefoot,_

_mumbler, _

_you've left_

_your glass on the porch-railing _

_- neglect, as_

_what is fragile, seen_

_through,_

_but not at this hour empty:_

_the way disease does_

_the body, the way desire _

_can, or how God_

_is said to,_

_slowly rain fills the glass._

_Never mind_

_that no kingdom was ever won_

_by small gestures:_

_I'm tipping the rainwater out._

_The glass I'll put_

_here, where you'll find it._

He thinks I don't know about the morphine. I suppose that makes sense, in some ways. Normally I'd shove it in his face, tell him exactly why he was doing it and what it was doing to him. But then, seeing your best friend bleeding and flayed open and delirious…you can find a lot to forgive. As I stand out here on my balcony, I can see a half dozen trespasses that I will let slide. He's left his shoes right in front of the doors. He's been smoking cigars again out here. He's left a beer bottle on the patio table. A martini glass. Through the windows, I can see the pile of dishes that he should have washed. And if I press myself against the glass, I could see his naked feet hanging off my bed. It's criminal, to fall asleep so early when all I want to do is…

I imagine his toes curling, his back arching, and I move away from the sliding doors and away from the limited shelter of the awning. It's raining now, a symphony of Corona and Absolut. I grimace at the ashtray and its make-shift swamp, wishing he'd stop. And it's not about his health. I wish I could complain about it to him, but he'd know my motives. I'm transparent, these days. I don't know that I've always been. Still, he'd know that I just hate the smell on him. He'd know that I'd clutch him against me and miss the smell of him alone. And he'd never let me live that kind of sentimentality down. I'm not allowed to think that way about him, or about us. It's a rule. "No breasts," he'd said. I know he means more than fidelity. But again, maybe not. He needs me to stay true to the relationship we've had since we met. That's fidelity, isn't it? No matter what he might say, I do know what that word means.

I carry the martini glass over to the balcony and run my fingers around the rim, making it sing. I should go inside, to him, but…I do know about the morphine. And I know he's in pain again, even though he keeps saying that I was right. That it's just middle age. That he doesn't need the cane. My finger thrums against the glass and I wonder why it's so easy for him to sleep these days. I wonder if he's shooting up again. I wonder if he's found another doctor to write for him. I wonder if he doesn't trust me with his pain. I wonder if I'm a monster for feeling relieved by that prospect.

Eventually, I'll go inside. I'll trip over his shoes, do the dishes. He'll be warm under the sheets and he'll wake up long enough to give me shit about doing the dishes and I'll tell him that I didn't do them all. That I left the martini glass outside, just for him.

"My baby's growing up so fast," he'll say. "You'll make a fine housewife one of these days."

I'll have fun shutting him up. And maybe in the morning, he'll tell me why I was standing out there in the rain.


	7. Chapter 7

**VII. You and I – Tennessee Williams (House on Wilson, after pain comes back)**

_Who are you?_

_A surface warm to my fingers,_

_a solid form, an occupant of space,_

_a makeshift kind of enjoyment,_

_a pitiless being who runs away like water,_

_something left unfinished, out of inferior matter,_

_Something God thought of._

_Nothing, sometimes everything,_

_something I cannot believe in,_

_a foolish argument, you, yourself, not I,_

_an enemy of mine. My lover._

_Who am I? _

_A wounded man, badly bandaged,_

_a monster among angels or angel among monsters,_

_a box of questions shaken up and scattered on the floor,_

_A foot on the stairs, a voice on the wire,_

_a busy collection of thumbs that imitate fingers,_

_an enemy of yours. Your lover._

He found it because of Chase, of all people. He'd asked his youngest fellow why he didn't just transfer to peds and Chase had muttered something about feeling like a monster among angels. House made an expected jab about pedophilia and had left it at that, but the phrase kept playing over and again in his mind until finally he just googled it. And found this poem.

If he were a different man, he'd print it out and give it to Wilson. It would be easy, wouldn't it? Maybe fold it into a paper airplane and send it over the balcony. Apology, air mailed. He is certainly lazy enough to let someone else take care of his dirty work. And hadn't he let Wilson apologize about trying to hide his vegetable's recovery by adding a playlist featuring high-spirited groveling to his iPod? Not to mention pirate chanteys (he was still trying to untangle the metaphor behind that choice…)

But House knows a poem isn't enough. Not when he hasn't spoken to Wilson in four days. Not when Wilson is sequestered in a meeting with Cuddy about his legal culpability in House's prescription fraud. And anyway, what kind of apology would this make? So what if it's how he feels, most days? Could he trust Wilson to understand what it meant? That even though they were both assholes, both of their stories ended in the same place. With them, together.

He can't tell Wilson that. Not because he's some martyr at the hands of love, willing to set Wilson free rather than crush him with his ego and stubbornness and self-centeredness. It is…fear. That's what it always boils down to with him. He'd honestly believed that they would end together. And he'd honestly believed that he'd be the first to go. Which meant that something fundamental in Wilson would change, once House was gone. And now, with Wilson leaving him, he can't just come out and admit that he'd never be the same. He can't give Wilson that power over him.

It's all bullshit. He knows this. He knows that soon, maybe tomorrow, he'll meet Wilson in the cafeteria and he'll steal his chips and Wilson will roll his eyes and sigh. And maybe there will be an awkward silence and maybe he'll want to leave, but he won't because Wilson won't make him. And House will take advantage of Wilson's aversion to making scenes and he'll pretend everything is back to normal after a small but inadequate "I'm sorry." It's what they do. And if something has changed so much because of this one failure to do the right thing, then he'll convince himself that there's nothing left to save, just long enough to do something that Wilson can never forgive. Because that's what he does. He makes a show of pushing people away. And he never lets them go.

But it won't be today. Wilson's brown bagging it. So House takes his Vicodin, scowling at Chase's name on the bottle. He sees Wilson walk past his office, talking to one of his nurses. Wilson looks up. Looks at him. Lets him know that the meeting went ok. Lets him know that he doesn't have to worry about him. But he doesn't smile. And he keeps walking. Running away like water. Because he's everything. Like water.

House will fix this. Maybe it'll never be the same. But he won't let them end here.


	8. Chapter 8

**Warning: This final chapter contains character death**.

**VIII. The Embrace **

When he'd had the infarction, over a decade ago now (and were we ever that young, to think that a decade meant something so precious?), he never asked _why_. We were doctors. But more important, for those agonizing moments of reflection, we were men. Human. The questions that we focused on were about motives not so physical. These were the days before he'd stare into a microscope and give a virus the third degree. All of the why's back then were about Stacy. About Cuddy. About _him_. And of me, he only asked _where_. _Where were you?_

It was hard enough just to get him standing again. Maybe we were distracted too easily. Maybe we didn't want to think about it. Or maybe that was me. He thought about everything. Why does a healthy man suddenly throw a clot in his leg?

I'm sure he thought about that.

There are things I have to try to remember about him, even though it's only been a few months since he died. Standing in line at the grocery store, I'll look at the tabloids and try to remember which one he'd buy in anticipation of a full day of clinic duty. Reading the paper in the morning, I'll try to remember some of the things he'd said about the inheritability of stupidity. Passing Cameron in the hall, I'll try to remember exactly what his face looked like when he mock-ogled. Waking up from some stupid dream where I see him smooth-shaven and smiling, I'll struggle to remember why it feels so wrong. Then I look at his picture on the bedside table (_oh spare me_, he'd say).

I never have to remember that he's gone.

And then, there are things I try to forget. Waking up that morning, cold fingers against my back. Stupidly fighting my way into the morgue mid-autopsy because I just had to see. Cursing at Cuddy for not warning us that he was prone to throwing clots (we were all doctors, once). Holding his mom's hand at the funeral. Why I want to forget that, I can't say. But it doesn't feel like it belongs to me. Not anymore.

I've lost people I loved before, but it's never been like this. But maybe that's the problem. Love in the past tense. Wives, uncles, brothers. They leave or die or just fade away into time and I still care for them and the memory of us together, but do I love them? I can't answer that. I do love him, though. At this moment, I love him very much. I pray to God that never changes. Because I feel like I'm…_more_. I'm fundamentally different than I was before I loved House. It's not all that surprising, I suppose. Just because he seemed immune to my influence doesn't mean that people are full of shit when they say that a love that great can change a man. _Everybody lies_, he'd say. Or maybe not. Maybe he'd grin and say he knew how to make an impact and hit me with his cane. Or maybe he'd just smile and kiss me.

I think about that part of _us_ a lot. His lips. His face both sharp and soft. His hands on my arms, my neck, my face. I can close my eyes and practically feel him there with me. But when I open my eyes, I never have to remember that he's gone. Sometimes, though... sometimes I have to remember that I'm not gone, too.

"The Embrace" by Mark Doty

_You weren't well or really ill yet either;_

_just a little tired, your handsomeness_

_tinged by grief or anticipation, which brought_

_to your face a thoughtful deepening grace._

_I didn't for a moment doubt you were dead._

_I knew that to be true still, even in the dream._

_You'd been out – at work maybe? – _

_having a good day, almost energetic._

_We seemed to be moving from some old house_

_where we'd lived, boxes everywhere, things_

_in disarray; that was the story of my dream,_

_but even asleep I was shocked out of narrative_

_by your face, the physical fact of your face;_

_inches from mine, smooth-shaven, loving, alert._

_Why so difficult, remembering the actual look_

_of you? Without a photograph, without strain?_

_So when I saw your unguarded, reliable face,_

_your unmistakable gaze opening all the warmth_

_and clarity of you – warm brown tea – we held_

_each other for the time the dream allowed._

_Bless you. You came back, so I could see you_

_once more, plainly, so I could rest against you_

_without thinking this happiness lessened anything,_

_without thinking you were alive again._


End file.
